CTS - Seminar 1 - Panopticism

Basically this seminar was about recapping the Panopticism lecture to see how much we had grasped from it.


We discussed key topics and points of the lecture the session went as follows.


- Conform - shift from physical control to mental control
- the way you are controlled affects how productive you are - discipline being positive not negative


- the Panopticon - proposal for an institution (Jeremy Bentham, 1791)
- isolation - individualisation


- Panoptic system gets better results from people opposed to a physical disciplinary system or reward system


- visible /invisible - there needs to be a degree of visibility and a degree of invisibility on the watchers part in order for the panopticon to have a full effect.
- light - constantly illuminated - drawing attention to ones self whilst making them aware that the are completely visible and visually vulnerable to the watcher.
- Laboratory - experiments and observations are able to be carried out to test mental traits and new technology.


Its a system to control, train, improve and correct




Power - not a thing someone has - Foucault describes power to a relationship and not something that you have and can wield or use.

A only has power over B if B allows itself to succumb to A. For example, if a class of students didn't turn up for a class or seminar then the teacher or lecturer would have no power to dictate to them or teach them. Their presence is a signifier for them allowing the teacher to have the power to teach. This is enforced by the institution in which they are thought as the building itself mentally controls the students to behave and act as they would expect students to.

In a way the institution creates the situation in which power can be generated.

Once people realise this is the case they begin to understand the consequences if they were to resist.

Self regulating panoptic tools - the speed camera. Cuts out the need for an actually watcher, similar to CCTV. This technology that permanently records and stores information about us controls us as we behave as we wish to be seen.

The Institutional Gaze - the teacher has power but the power is given by the institutional atmosphere - the students conform to what they think they should be - equally the teacher is behaving as a teacher should because of this atmosphere that comes from the institution.

Ultimately panopticism is there to make us better and become docile bodies.